in this world nothing is coming back

Full walk through video: 

‘At bottom, the spectre is the future, it is always to come, it presents itself only as that which could come or come back.’ (Derrida, 1994)

‘in this world nothing is coming back’, inspired by Derrida's hauntology, is a VR walking simulator into a surreal dreamscape of fragmented memories and morphing realities mediated by machine learning generated moving images and non-euclidean, impossible spaces achieved through the use of portals. Beginning as a reconstruction of the artist's childhood home, a labyrinthine reflection of her post-surgical memory loss, the journey expands beyond personal recollection to confront a lost future, incorporating elements such as a recreated future-telling ritual from the artist's cultural background, exploring broader anxieties surrounding economic crises, war, and the precariousness of love in a rapidly changing world.

The experience oscillates between the haunting presence of the past, the unreliability of memory, and the unsettling uncertainty of the future. While blurring these contingencies into a blender of regrets marked indelibly by personal history, slowly tasting words that are swallowed back, memories eaten by mould, and the bitterness of growing up, like the fragmented visions and thoughts that flicker and fade as one drifts to sleep.

Read more about the project here

Shortlisted for the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories (FIVARS), showcasing in Toronto from 3 Oct to 8 Oct, 2024. 

Extended showcase on  FIVARS online, from 10 Oct to 3 Nov, 2024.  

archive of the first release version (first showcase in Fog Rot, London April 2024)